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Sunday, February 25, 2007

On Mindless Menace of Violence

Robert Kennedy's Speech at Cleveland, Ohio April 5, 1968

On Mindless Menace of Violence

"Mr Chairmen,Ladies And Gentlemen

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race.The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lost their cause and pay the costs."Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands.We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others.We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others.We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something.Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again."

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WELCOME NOTE

Is this your first time at my Blog? Read this Short Introduction of what it's about!

I AM strongly intuitive woman who awakened at 14 in 1996 (after a year of watching the x-files), started meditating at 16 (after being introduced to nature based religions), channelled for the first time at 18 (with guidance of Reiki Master and a good friend of my mother and her twin sister).

Have had a human existence of trials and tribulations (from being bullied at school to being bullied at work, to health scares of near family), but have finally figured out why I AM Here, how to take it easy (such ways as quit bad jobs, say no, and find out at the soul level that I too am a miracle) and cherish all things alive within our massive universal family from every little atom to their massive intricate collections like the earth we inhabit.

I'm now 31, I live in Finland, up here in the North. I live in the capital, Helsinki, with my loving american husband and our globe-trotting dog Orion.

I have this BLOG that is near 6 years of my Heart and Soul - feel free to roam around and see what Spirituality is for this Finnish woman in her 20's through 30's.

I am also fairly active photographer so most of the photos here are taken by me. If you click "my photos" from tags you'll see all my posts with my photographs.

That's the short story of me, so welcome to Niina's!

"Once we develop Unity Consciousness, we will know that there is no such thing as “us and them.” We will remember that all Life is interconnected, interdependent, and interrelated.

What this means very practically in our lives is that every single thought, word, feeling, or action we express effects every facet of Life on this planet.

Just think, with every thought, word, feeling, or action we are either adding to the Light of the world or to the shadows.

Moment by moment we are either positively or negatively affecting every person, place, condition, or thing on Earth. That is quite a responsibility!"~ www.eraofpeace.org

QUOTE

"Give them your love, even when they do not want to accept it. It is your chance to really show to others what love means by expressing it every moment you are able to do so. This will be the new wave of being."

QUOTE

"We come together in the spirit of unity to heal wounds that separate us, to reconcile conflicts that divide us, to inspire ideas and actions that express our Oneness, and to join together in heart and mind to welcome the birth of our New World."~ Dr. Carl Johan Calleman

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About My Photos

Under this section is TAGS, in which a word MY PHOTOS when clicked showns all the photographs taken by me, that are attached to the posts.